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Stories of elaborate lunches and overstuffed snack stops have orbited tech companies since the first dot-com boom. In certain circles, wrangling an invitation to the Twitter lunchroom merits bragging rights. But as more tech companies see food as an essential benefit, the role of the people who prepare that food is evolving.

Last week, I interviewed a panel of four executive chefs at San Francisco tech companies — Lance Holton of Twitter, Brian Mattingly of Dropbox, Shane Dykhuis of BandPage, and Matthew DuTrumble of Zynga — for an audience of Chronicle subscribers and Luxury Marketing Council members. Before the talk, the four chefs spoke on camera about feeding engineers, which involves far more than running a glorified cafeteria. They also spoke about the role of food at their companies, the food they like to serve, and what they love about their job.